Can We Make a U-Turn?

With great regret, we must share that Tyler's disease appears to have advanced again.  We went through a full day of testing today, to try to get more information about what exactly is happening and what we can do to fight it, but we are VERY discouraged by this news.

Over the last week, Tyler has had increasing pain in his upper back and shoulders.  As we took a short trip to celebrate our 3rd anniversary, he initially attributed that pain to sleeping in unfamiliar beds.  Unfortunately, the pain got worse each day -- even after we returned home.  We were in contact with our oncologist on both Monday and Tuesday, with the recommendation that we go to the ER if Tyler was in too much pain to handle.  On Tuesday, we finally did just that.

In the ER, we convinced someone to get an MRI for Tyler's back to see if they could see anything that might be causing his pain.  We were absolutely shocked when the ER doctor came in to tell us that it appeared that Tyler had tumors of some sort up and down his spine.  Much of what she said didn't make sense to us, but the doctors there were able to give Tyler some stronger pain medication (compared to Tylenol at home) and he finally got a little bit of relief.

On Wednesday, we got an appointment at SCCA to find out what was really going on.  While there, we learned that leukemia CAN form solid tumors of white blood cells, although this is rare.  We also learned that Tyler's blood test from that morning was showing blasts.  Blasts are immature white cells that don't really go any of the work they are supposed to do, compared to partially developed white cells that are just lazy (more common in chronic leukemias).  In the phases of leukemia, showing a high amount of blast cells indicates that the disease is progressing to the next stage.

With the fact that Tyler's pain increased rapidly over the period of one week and he showed blasts 1 month after his last test at SCCA, this is NOT a good sign.

While at SCCA on Wednesday, we learned that Tyler has 2 tumors along his spine that are causing him problems, although others likely exist.  One is causing the pain in his back and the other is causing numbness in his hand.  Additionally, a new mass has been identified in his upper left chest area.  They biopsied the mass on his chest today, and are talking about radiation possibly shrinking the tumors in his spine.  One concern about getting radiation at this point is that Tyler has already received so much, he might not be able to handle more.  Each body has a limit to how much it can receive.

Thursday's blood test showed even more blasts than the previous day, so it is likely that whatever we do will have to happen very soon.  While we wait for test results and more meetings with doctors next week, please do keep Tyler in your thoughts.  We are both so very discouraged that his journey is not yet over.